Abstract Background Lack of donor organs remains a major obstacle in organ transplantation. Our aim was to evaluate (1) the association between engaging in high-risk recreational activities and ...attitudes toward organ donation and (2) the degree of reciprocity between organ acceptance and donation willingness in young men. Methods A 17-item, close-ended survey was offered to male conscripts ages 18 to 26 years in all Swiss military conscription centers. Predictors of organ donation attitudes were assessed in bivariate analyses and multiple logistic regression. Reciprocity of the intentions to accept and to donate organs was assessed by means of donor card status. Results In 1559 responses analyzed, neither motorcycling nor practicing extreme sports reached significant association with donor card holder status. Family communication about organ donation, student, or academic profession and living in a Latin linguistic region were predictors of positive organ donation attitudes, whereas residence in a German-speaking region and practicing any religion predicted reluctance. Significantly more respondents were willing to accept than to donate organs, especially among those without family communication concerning organ donation. Conclusions For the first time, it was shown that high-risk recreational activities do not influence organ donation attitudes. Second, a considerable discrepancy in organ donation reciprocity was identified. We propose that increasing this reciprocity could eventually increase organ donation rates.
Elevated in-stream temperature has led to a surge in the occurrence of parasitic intrusion proliferative kidney disease and has resulted in fish kills throughout Switzerland’s waterways. Data from ...distributed temperature sensing (DTS) in-stream measurements for three cloud-free days in August 2007 over a 1260 m stretch of the Boiron de Morges River in southwest Switzerland were used to calibrate and validate a physically based one-dimensional stream temperature model. Stream temperature response to three distinct riparian conditions were then modeled: open, in-stream reeds, and forest cover. Simulation predicted a mean peak stream temperature increase of 0.7 °C if current vegetation was removed, an increase of 0.1 °C if dense reeds covered the entire stream reach, and a decrease of 1.2 °C if a mature riparian forest covered the entire reach. Understanding that full vegetation canopy cover is the optimal riparian management option for limiting stream temperature, in-stream reeds, which require no riparian set-aside and grow very quickly, appear to provide substantial thermal control, potentially useful for land-use management.
Evidence for a narrow baryon state is found in quasi-real photoproduction on a deuterium target through the decay channel pK0S→pπ+π−. A peak is observed in the pK0S invariant mass spectrum at ...1528±2.6(stat)±2.1(syst) MeV. Depending on the background model, the naive statistical significance of the peak is 4–6 standard deviations and its width may be somewhat larger than the experimental resolution of σ=4.3–6.2 MeV. This state may be interpreted as the predicted S=+1 exotic Θ+(uudds̄) pentaquark baryon. No signal for an hypothetical Θ++ baryon was observed in the pK+ invariant mass distribution. The absence of such a signal indicates that an isotensor Θ is excluded and an isovector Θ is unlikely.
Single-spin asymmetries for semi-inclusive electroproduction of charged pions in deep-inelastic scattering of positrons are measured for the first time with transverse target polarization. The ...asymmetry depends on the azimuthal angles of both the pion (phi) and the target spin axis (phi(S)) about the virtual-photon direction and relative to the lepton scattering plane. The extracted Fourier component sin((phi+phi(S))(pi)(UT) is a signal of the previously unmeasured quark transversity distribution, in conjunction with the Collins fragmentation function, also unknown. The component sin((phi-phi(S)(pi)(UT) arises from a correlation between the transverse polarization of the target nucleon and the intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks, as represented by the previously unmeasured Sivers distribution function. Evidence for both signals is observed, but the Sivers asymmetry may be affected by exclusive vector meson production.
The molecular nanoscale organization of the surfaceome is a fundamental regulator of cellular signaling in health and disease. Technologies for mapping the spatial relationships of cell surface ...receptors and their extracellular signaling synapses would unlock theranostic opportunities to target protein communities and the possibility to engineer extracellular signaling. Here, we develop an optoproteomic technology termed LUX-MS that enables the targeted elucidation of acute protein interactions on and in between living cells using light-controlled singlet oxygen generators (SOG). By using SOG-coupled antibodies, small molecule drugs, biologics and intact viral particles, we demonstrate the ability of LUX-MS to decode ligand receptor interactions across organisms and to discover surfaceome receptor nanoscale organization with direct implications for drug action. Furthermore, by coupling SOG to antigens we achieved light-controlled molecular mapping of intercellular signaling within functional immune synapses between antigen-presenting cells and CD8
T cells providing insights into T cell activation with spatiotemporal specificity. LUX-MS based decoding of surfaceome signaling architectures thereby provides a molecular framework for the rational development of theranostic strategies.
The rate distortion behavior of sparse memoryless sources is studied. These serve as models of sparse signal representations and facilitate the performance analysis of "sparsifying" transforms like ...the wavelet transform and nonlinear approximation schemes. For strictly sparse binary sources with Hamming distortion, R(D) is shown to be almost linear. For nonstrictly sparse continuous-valued sources, termed compressible, two measures of compressibility are introduced: incomplete moments and geometric mean. The former lead to low- and high-rate upper bounds on mean squared error D(R), while the latter yields lower and upper bounds on source entropy, thereby characterizing asymptotic R(D) behavior. Thus, the notion of compressibility is quantitatively connected with actual lossy compression. These bounding techniques are applied to two source models: Gaussian mixtures and power laws matching the approximately scale-invariant decay of wavelet coefficients. The former are versatile models for sparse data, which in particular allow to bound high-rate compression performance of a scalar mixture compared to a corresponding unmixed transform coding system. Such a comparison is interesting for transforms with known coefficient decay, but unknown coefficient ordering, e.g., when positions of highest-variance coefficients are unknown. The use of these models and results in distributed coding and compressed sensing scenarios are also discussed.
The Hermes experiment has investigated the tensor spin structure of the deuteron using the 27.6 GeV/c positron beam of DESY HERA. The use of a tensor-polarized deuteron gas target with only a ...negligible residual vector polarization enabled the first measurement of the tensor asymmetry A{sub zz}{sup d} and the tensor structure function b{sub 1}{sup d} for average values of the Bjorken variable 0.01< <0.45 and of the negative of the squared four-momentum transfer 0.5 GeV{sup 2}<<Q{sup 2}><5 GeV{sup 2}. The quantities A{sub zz}{sup d} and b{sub 1}{sup d} are found to be nonzero. The rise of b{sub 1}{sup d} for decreasing values of x can be interpreted to originate from the same mechanism that leads to nuclear shadowing in unpolarized scattering.
The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule connects the anomalous contribution to the magnetic moment of the target nucleus with an energy-weighted integral of the difference of the helicity-dependent ...photoabsorption cross sections. Originally conceived for real photons, the GDH integral can be generalised to the case of photons with virtuality Q2. For spin-1/2 targets such as the nucleon, it then represents the non-perturbative limit of the first moment \(\Gamma_1\) of the spin structure function g1(x,Q2) in deep inelastic scattering (DIS). The data collected by HERMES with a deuterium target are presented together with a re-analysis of previous measurements on the proton. This provides an unprecedented and complete measurement of the generalised GDH integral for photon-virtuality ranging over 1.2<Q2<12.0 GeV2 and for photon-nucleon invariant mass squared W2 ranging over 1<W2<45 GeV2, thus covering simultaneously the nucleon-resonance and the deep inelastic scattering regions. These data allow the study of the Q2-dependence of the full GDH integral, which is sensitive to both the Q2-evolution of the resonance form factors and contributions of higher twist. The contribution of the nucleon-resonance region is seen to decrease rapidly with increasing Q2. The DIS contribution is sizeable over the full measured range, even down to the lowest measured Q2. As expected, at higher Q2 the data are found to be in agreement with previous measurements of the first moment of g1. From data on the deuteron and proton, the GDH integral for the neutron has been derived and the proton-neutron difference evaluated. This difference is found to satisfy the fundamental Bjorken sum rule at Q2 = 5 GeV2.
The HERMES hydrogen and deuterium nuclear-polarized gas targets have been in use since 1996 with the polarized electron beam of HERA at DESY to study the spin structure of the nucleon. Polarized ...atoms from a Stern–Gerlach Atomic Beam Source are injected into a storage cell internal to the HERA electron ring. Atoms diffusing from the center of the storage cell into a side tube are analyzed to determine the atomic fraction and the atomic polarizations. The atoms have a nuclear polarization, the axis of which is defined by an external magnetic holding field. The holding field was longitudinal during 1996–2000, and was changed to transverse in 2001. The design of the target is described, the method for analyzing the target polarization is outlined, and the performance of the target in the various running periods is presented.
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